The effects of the incorporated oxygen and the different buffer layers on the optical properties and surface morphology of GaN were studied. The results show that the decrease of the concentration of the incorporated oxygen has no effect on the surface morphology, but improves the optical properties. While the introduction of the AlN buffer layer makes not only the surface morphology but also the optical properties improve. Both the oxygen contamination from the nitrogen source and the resulted morphology are directly related to the line width of the low-temperature photoluminescence(PL) spectra.